[adultcomicssitedessaa]

What a group of geeks.

[Almolfuncomma]

That sounds like a standard legal thing, to me. Probably not going to happen but in other trademark or IP infringement cases that's been the eventual ruling (take for example the copyright infringement case against the folks who were cutting out swear words in movies, they had to give their inventories back to the studios).

[Dyerryjex]

I like the Red Cross, therefore J&J is crap organization and their argument is bollocks.

[mas-dkt-sive]

If J&J paid good money for an exclusive license, I can understand why they would be upset if the Red Cross is continuing to grant more licenses.

I am puzzled by a license that's lasted over 110 years. That seems kinda long.

I can understand why J&J can ask for an injuction. I have no idea of what their legal basis is for asking for poessession of any product with a red cross on it.

[artenotreah]

I bet Clara Barton is spinning in her grave.

[xADMlNx]

Definitely no trade mark time limit. I wonder if there's more to it than meets the eye here... other articles i've seen made it clear that the ARC has sold/licensed products to be sold for charitable purposes before with J&J not objecting, so it must be something more up front than this...

[Pynctyncroast]

No, and that would be obvious if you read the article.

[majestictwelve]

Sigh. J&J used the symbol for certain medical supplies, like bandages. The ARC holds the trademark for the symbol in the US, so J&J cut an exclusive deal with them. Now, the Red Cross is licensing the trademark to other vendors for the same items. So J&J sues, because they have the exclusive right to the symbol for those items.

[Roker]

ok so in the cases of war, a red cross, is a symbol that sends a message to the enemy to not fire on this group, is owned by a corporation out for profit?? I see my fellow medical professionals feeling comfy in the line of fire

[allemnendup]

I understand from that article and another I read that J&J is not licensing the symbol from ARC per se, but sort of co-owns it. They came to a deal in 1887 with Clara Barton (in OP) as to its use, because they presumably both laid claim to the symbol.

[alskdjreyfd]

When did you last contribute to The American Red Cross?
The question is directed to anyone, so no one get excited.

[mincbiori]

This is ****witted and bad publicity for the company. Are the corporate elite getting so greedy and shortsighted these days?

[EmxATW5m]

After 110 years it should be defunct anyway.

[Ladbarbastirm]

A quick lesson, everyone:

Trademarks don't exists for the sake of businesses, they exist to help consumers. By giving a business exclusive use of a mark that they put on their products (their trade mark), it permits consumers to know that the product they purchased was really made by the manufacturer they believe.

Wiki has a pretty good explanation if you want more detail.

[Baromaro]

Kuci is very effectively giving the producer point of view on the matter

However it (obviously) works both ways, and most of the time the producer benefits plenty from the trademark. Hence why they go to so much effort to defend them

Trademarks are valuable to producers basically for the reason Kuci said - people recognize them and know they're buying the correct brand of product - and because of the cost of advertising. Advertising is most effective with brand symbols as well as names (obviously), and many advertisers have spent a fortune on making their trademark symbol (whether it is a name or a logo) become well known.

PH, the reason they don't go defunct is that they don't, as long as the trademark owner continues using them, and defending their trademark from abuses. If either one is no longer true, they actually go quite quickly defunct (as opposed to Copyright, where the work is copyrighted for nearly a century even if you at no point claim copyright...)

The funniest thing about Trademarks that i've heard is from medical trademarks. It seems that any time a pharm company makes a new drug, they think of the stupidest name possible for it - one nearly impossible to say and using lots of weird letters - for its official, scientific name. Then they give it a nice, easy to say real name for its trademarked name.

Why? So that when it goes generic, nobody will be able to ask for it by its formulary name, only remembering the real name

Celebrex = "celecoxib"
Lipitor = "atorvastatin"
etc.

The names look reasonable, but are VERY hard to pronounce, generally having odd syllables in them (xib for example). There are much odder ones, i just picked the first two I could find

[Kausilwf]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
After 110 years it should be defunct anyway. So, you'd be happy if you went to the store, bought cans of Coca-Cola and found out you actually bought bottled (or canned) water made by another company because the trademark had expired?

[ffdfriendforurr]

Be happy then. The unsuccessful ones don't.

[AbeldeldepBug]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I'd be happier if corporations didn't live longer than humans. That's silly.

[EscaCsamas]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Kuci is very effectively giving the producer point of view on the matter This is also silly. Trademarks only restrict producers' abilities, not consumers, so producers as a whole don't have any interest in trademarks as a way to get power over consumers.

[GreefeWrereon]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
In this case, using the symbol for the Red Cross, is not harmful to the J&J folks, it gives them additional benefits. Harassing the Red Cross just gets them bad publicity. 'Cause then any company can start to use it since the trademark ceases to exist. Suddenly all sorts of companies are using the red cross and J&J can't do a damn thing about it because it failed to protect its trademark.